The Care and Tending of Cyclones

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Elaine Stirling, fun rhyming verse, poetry

I

I tend a cache of cyclones
intermittent and aligned

a merry stash of what’s to come
down pipelines I’ve designed

by focusing on what I choose
deliberately to occupy my day

the cyclones pull in more of same
which saves in every way

the energy required of me
who used to think that I must be
to every toad, dick, enemy
available.

II

Availing is to help oneself
an Olympian ability

to only that which pleases
with no grave necessity

apart from knowing I’ve these
cyclones in their ever-spinning cages

who spit out and extrapolate
and bring me what engages.

The challenge with cyclonics is
not what to groom or feed them

and even less to worry if it’s
right or wrong to breed them.

From the moment I begin my
day, the little beasts are roaring

hunting down the succulent
and best, they love exploring!

Reports they bring back constantly
of who’s nearby. Their scoring

is impeccable, discernment
they will amplify by tens

of thousands, millions more than
my pea brain can calculate.

They sort my dreams, chase out
the schemes of nasty little grievers

keep my sights and pathways clean
of simpering achievers.

III

Now, while it may seem difficult
at first to care for cyclones

especially if to doldrums you’ve
accustomed your attention

or to outer storms and conflicts
been addicted, thinking tension
is the answer, well…

I can assure that cyclones
will not bite the mindful owner

wear you out or make demands
except of those to chill and laugh

and flirt a little now and then
and only when you want to!

Once you have them spinning
in alignment they will prove

themselves to be your best
and sole, Good Life provider.

Goodbye to whine, hello merlot,
vast funds, good fun, and travel.

So long, sad sacks, hello success,
new love and friends to revel

with me in the tending and the masterful
suspending of a cache of carefree, endless
whirling, new world turning, cyclones.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014

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DSM & Other Classified Disorderlies

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Elaine Stirling, fun and silly rhyming verse

Reader Alert: The following verse is meant to be read in the spirit of play. I have tremendous respect for people who work in the psychiatric profession, and empathy for those who struggle—and thrive—with mental illness.

~~~

I’ve taken a course
to understand
why the course
of my life has not
gone hand in hand
with the orders I gave it—
or somebody did.

I can’t quite remember.

I ordered a book
that took men and women
much smarter than me
sixty-two years
to determine what’s
what in the brain
we call normal

which was something
I thought I never
could be

and now,
having read
and not understood

—I am using the book
as a stool for the foot
that I used to put into
my mouth—

I can say
with undisguised glee
there are only three things
that are wrong with me!

#1

I have the ability to not sit still
in the presence of boredom disorder.

If you determine
I should take a pill,
I will reach for a pillow
resisting temptation
for I can delay
like nobody’s business
and save for a day
the gratification to whomp
it across your head.

And take a nap instead.

#2

In the face of anxiety
I do not panic
though I probably should
if not panic
do something

I’m too busy
thinking of all
of my options
in times of anxiety
there are only
three

fight
flight or
freeze

but when caught
in tight corners, the Fs
on my tongue get tied up
and I twist them to

fleas
fright
and frig it!

Then do what I please.

#3

On days like today
when I’m too sad
to play in the rain—
YET AGAIN!

and reading
the forecast with
pictures of suns they
delete (oops, wrong
again!) makes me feel
even more of a drip

I go on a trip
in my mind where
there’s no border guards
and the Silk Road
is booming

and buy myself
mansions with poets
in residence

ask Paco de Lucia
to tune my guitar—
he always say yes!

And I learn to play chess.

that is all
that is all
that is wrong
with me

~~~

DSM stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It was first published in 1952 and is now in its fifth edition, known as DSM-5.

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
The painting called “Ecstasy” is by Maxfield Parrish.

My Love and the Paper Boat

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contemporary mythology, Elaine Stirling, happiness is a decision, humour, interrupted rhyme, love, manifestation, rhyming couplets, romance, taking life lightly

I

My love built me a paper boat
to float upon the sea

across its flimsy hull he wrote
in script too small to see

with eyelash of an octopus
as brush, and ink of squid

the magic words to bring us back
when one sees fit to quit.

A magnifying glass I held
to that wee paper boat

attempting to decipher what
my love had sweetly wrote.

I thought I caught a word or two
but then came Mr. Sun

who lit what I had magnified
and burnt it into crumbs

of ash that blew across the sky.
Oh, crap, I thought, now what?

My love will have a fit when he
sees how I crisped our boat.

In fear, I found myself a clam
and asked if I could rent

his shell to hide myself until
I’d figured how to tell

the news. The clam said yes, but when
you’re done, be sure to leave

the shell behind for someone else
to find and hide inside.

Good shells, they don’t come cheap, you know,
and everyone’s afraid.

II

I hid inside my puny case
and read the daily news;

I texted friends and buffed my nails,
did anything I choose

and wondered why my love had not
come round to say hello.

I cranked the lid and peered outside
in time to see the tail

of Jupiter the Whale before
he swallowed everything.

III

The darkness here inside the gut
has no apparent end

and Jupiter can’t feel me when
I poke him with my nail

so I decide to sing about
my lover’s beauteous ways

his touch and smell, the smile he wears
when life is going well

and as I start to sing I hear
weird stirrings all around

that grow to voices, weak at first,
that rise, a mighty swell

and soon we’re all a-weeping ‘bout
the loves we left behind;

ahead is surely nothing, sniff!
but more, oh, woe betide…

discouraged by the swallowed mob
I wonder how to squelch

their ever-pining misery
when suddenly a belch

erupts that pours the seven seas
across new land—I’m free!

IV

This island with the coconuts
is big enough for two—

a sandy beach, a woven hut,
there’s nothing much I need to do.

The squid whose ink my lover used
to write has told the octopus

whose lashes have grown in,
exactly where I am, and lo!

before the sun has set, my love
arrives upon his boat

full grown, no longer paper, and
I see the words and laugh. What

happens next, we will not share.
You’ll have to ask the birds.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

Coriander Boogie

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all in good time, cilantro, coriander, Elaine Stirling, flow, fun and silly rhyming verse, humour, letting things be, plants that bolt fast, poetry, tolerance, vibrational reality

Coriander boogie
got me shakin’
in the morning
got me thinkin’
‘bout my baby and
the ways that we
been stormin’.

Coriander boogie
took me down
where there’s no
‘scaping, showed me
how we’s all behavin’
in a way that
keeps us slavin’.

So then I says to coriander,
what’s a gal to do when
all that’s sweet and green
and leafy turns to spice
that ain’t so nice?
You got advice?

And here’s what
coriander said to me:

You gotta let the green be green,
the fully ripened brings the flavour;
the twigs ain’t meant for eatin’
but they fed the seeds all season.

And the leaves that was
cilantro knew the time
to say, so long, and
that’s the thing you got
to learn that every reason
has its time. There ain’t no
right or wrong, only Mama
Nature growin’ up a bushel
and a beauty of a coriander,
once cilantro song!

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

Decrastinators’ Workplay Song

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brave new business leadership, Elaine Stirling, frustration, humour, Law of Attraction, life is supposed to be fun, neologues, parody, poetry, procrastination, The Corporate Storyteller, time management, vibrational reality, wordplay

One is now, soon
is never, later ate
by alligator. Crock is
that which says I will
and after while, an
other while, and yet
another, other while
doesn’t do the thing
or things you’ve
kindly asked—or
maybe not—the
croc, you see,
makes promises
but doesn’t ever
really ever do
the thing you want
them most to do
the way you would
have done the
thing if you had
done the thing
yourself. Boom!

Now crastinating’s
no big deal, for time
in time when time
is right will furnish
all, but what I’m
anti in the pro of
all procrastinators’
“Whoa!…” is how
they make the
someday that is
never any one day
rudely push away
the fun that comes
with every sun day,
place of rest is here
today (the sun came
up, uh-huh, it did!)
and here is where
Creation sees the
best of who and
what we are: I’m
number One and
so are you and
she and he, but
what and when
and how and
whether, all that
stuff is up to me
and only me, not
any of those
others.

The bottom line
is this: I do not
have to wait and
stomp and snuff
to start again—
Procrastinate, you
are and ever will be
late, you make a
really lousy date—
I’m starting now
without you,
“Bye!”

~~~

Procrastinate: from Latin, pro (in favour of) + crastinus (tomorrow)

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of skipping from Class May, 2010
at foothillforce.org